Yesterday New York City held a special tribute event to honor one of its own veterans in the ever-raging battle against despot Koopa, the man only know as Mario. The celebrated guest had a simple beginning as a humble Brooklyn plumber and part-time building superintendant who quickly and found himself engorged in an unexplained one man war against otherworldly threats. Twenty five years later, he is still going strong and now finds the retelling of his story coming to the third dimension!

Celebrating the launch of Super Mario 3D for the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo erected a very clever replica of The Mushroom Kingdom right on Military Island located in the center of Times Square. Kids were encouraged to enter the world past a massive scaled 3DS gaming system where they were allowed to climb over goombas, duck down into pipes as well as jump up to touch the floating coins and hit suspended the boxes. The course also featured those famous bullets that have faces and pipe-dwelling killer plants. Yes, my childhood has come to life.

Super Mario 3D Land in NYC – You can enter for Mario's Mustache at http://www.stuffwelike.com/2011/11/14/super-mario-3ds-nyc-event-and-giveaway/

Aside from this very cool visual experience, there was also a tent set up for passerby’s to engage in a demo of the game and system. The attendants working the booth were all dressed in hilarious white suits complete with past on moustache, clip on raccoon tails and matching ear headbands. There were also a number of people dressed up as the various Mario characters but I am not too confident on whether they were there on their own or as a part of the festivities.

Check out my photos of the event below and also please feel free to enter our giveaway for one of these hilarious stick-on Mario moustaches by filling out the form below.

Rules:
You must be a resident of the US.
You may only enter once.
You must enter via the form below before the date of 11/21/11 at 11:59pm PST.

Remember that cool Super Mario Bros. sound effects key-ring we told you about the other day. Well here’s something just as cool. It’s the Super Mario Bros Singing Glowing Star.

Now here’s the best part. Simply pat the back of it and it will play that iconic, and all so reassuring invincibility song from the Super Mario games. Oh how many times that cheery little star has saved me from those pesky Piranha plants.

But just as a side note, it doesn’t really give you powers of invincibility so don’t use it to confront dodgy folks loitering in alleys at night. Running into them with star in tow will probably have different repercussions than you might hope for.